Cheese, Gromit!

Note to Self: Gummi Bears - even Haribo Gold Bears - are not even remotely breakfast-like food. Stop eating them...immediately.

However, as I've discovered, wine on a Saturday morning totally IS breakfast food! It's just grape juice with a little panache, right?

Yes, I realize this is Sunday. I'm not talking about me drinking wine right at this very moment, although tempting - mostly because I've got to drive very shortly and just 1/2 glass of wine makes me loopy and happily relaxed. However, yesterday morning, the aforementioned Saturday morning, I did have wine for breakfast.

Because yesterday? Was the Colorado Cheese Fest! And what better way to start off the cheese fest than by making a beeline right for the first wine vendor we saw. Which is precisely what we - a group of lovely friends and I - did. And, since I hadn't eaten anything in order to save as much room in my tummy for delectable cheeses, the first sip of wine was literally breaking my fast.

Anyway!

The Colorado Cheese Fest was, in a word, amazing! So many different cheeses - cow, sheep, goat, buffalo, and even some Korean cheese of which we couldn't ascertain the animal nor could we figure out if they sell their wares anywhere. We think perhaps they just, you know, make their own cheeses for home consumption and figured why not? And signed themselves up for a booth.

There were aged cheeses and fresh cheeses and raw cheeses. There were flavored goat cheeses and there were dainty crackers and there was even some Primo Preserves (the Raspberry Habanero preserves is out of this world good).

My favorite cheeses of the day were provided by Sartori Cheese Shop out of Plymouth, WI (I miss you, Wisconsin). They'd brought a series of flavored Bellavitano - a combination of a young cheddar with an aged parmesan - and they were, in my opinion, the winners of my day. I particularly enjoyed the Merlot Bellavitano. I want more of it. Right now!

Then, after the cheese fest, we headed over to Mead St. Station for a lovely lunch including more wine and more cheese since Mead St. Station is just around the corner from St. Kilian's Cheese Shop. By then, I was a little wine and cheesed out. Frankly? I needed a nap.

It was such a delightful outing!

Combined with Doug Stanhope Friday night, a quiet night of (more) wine and writing followed up with an early-ish bedtime last night, an early, productive morning today during which I've successfully washed, dried, folded, and put away four loads of laundry, cleaned my room, and found an unopened (until recently) bag of Haribo Gold Gummi Bears I'd forgotten I bought about a month ago, and a trip up to hang out with the BFF this afternoon?

This weekend has been exactly what I needed.

I'm even thinking about exercising some this week. Scary.